


What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger (But We All Die Eventually)

by iwillsithereandtrytocontribute



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: All of the Entities, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Buried Alive, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), M/M, Manipulation, So be mindful of pretty much all trigger warnings associated with Jon's injuries in relation to them, contemplating death, falling, spoilers up to season 5, unbeta'd we die like archival assistants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28091301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillsithereandtrytocontribute/pseuds/iwillsithereandtrytocontribute
Summary: Jonah lies dead on his throne and the world will return to normal. Once the Archive is empty.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger (But We All Die Eventually)

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot stress enough how different this is from my usual stuff, be mindful reading this.

Jon hadn’t Known what would happen when he tried to reverse the ritual. Even the Eye in its element, in all its glory, couldn’t see the future. He’d only known that attempting as such would be painful. But he knew pain and cruelty intimately now. He wasn’t afraid to hurt if it meant undoing what he had done. So he had marched on to London.

Martin had known something was wrong. Jon had never lied to him, but enough half-truths will lead the same way. Martin’s nervous glances and soft words did nothing to dissuade him here at the end and beginning of it all.

Jon felt the webs first. Silk-thin strings tied to each of his limbs, pulling taut for the first time since he’d held A Guest for Mr. Spider in his hands. The Web had not controlled his movements, had not puppeted his limbs with its fine thread, but it had always been there. It had always Watched him. There was irony in that somewhere. It was the first of the marks he had borne upon his person. 

He gasped as the hundreds of small scars scattered across his body from a hundred silvery worms opened, staining his already dirty clothes with splotches of red. He could feel the ghost of them under his skin as they moved to overtake him, just as they had tried so long ago.

Colors exploded in his vision as the walls shifted and floors turned. Spirals of all shapes and colors formed around and through him. The stab wound deep within his arm throbbed somehow both in tune and completely out of sync with the shifting swirling mass around him. Shutting his eyes did nothing to ease the splitting headache now assailing him.

A burst of pain blooms from his shoulder where someone touches him and Jon is suddenly aware of the screaming, his screaming. Looking behind him, the colors receded just enough for him to see the leering mask standing there, limbs and frame alike grotesquely out of proportion. Jon flinched violently away, falling to the floor. The jarring impact only aggravated his open wounds. 

“ _Jo-on_ ,” came the sing-song voice from behind the mask. “ _You didn’t think you could get away from me_ that _easily, did you now Jon?”_

“No. No,” Jon panted. “I killed you.” 

“ _You did try_.” The thing behind the mask laughed, a loud cruel sound. The false smile on the mask grew and split the mask in half with a loud crack. And behind the mask… was Martin.

“Jon?” His brow was furrowed, his eyes darting around them looking for any threat. 

“M-Martin?”

“Are you alright?”

Jon nodded, knowing he wasn’t. Martin returned the nod, unconvinced. Martin offered his hand. Jon took it, unthinkingly. Pain erupted in fiery tendrils around his hand. His skin melted and reshaped itself again. He recoiled, falling to the floor again.

The floor wasn’t there when he reached it.

He was falling.

Falling.

And there was no ending to it.

There was no sky anymore, the Eye had taken it for its own, but Jon fell through whatever was left of it. More wounds opened. He clutched his non-injured hand to his slashed neck, wincing as the stab wound on his shoulder trickled warm blood down his sleeve. He’d known it was coming by now, but they hurt no less than they had the first time, stinking of copper and betrayal.

His choice, made so long ago in the hospital bed had been made a second time. There was no running from his fate. 

No running from the Terminus.

The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored.

There was a deep ache in his gut. The sounds of snapping and cracking bone, of shifting meat and flesh. Jon’s breathing, already low and shallow came again in quick bursts, in shouts of pain. 

He hit the ground suddenly with a smack. He lay there, panting for but a moment before he began to slip.

The ground beneath him became as though liquid, shifting and moving beneath him. The cobblestones and concrete underneath him became sand falling into the eager gullet of the Too Close I Cannot Breathe. It was fast at first, then slow as the earth piled around him. 

The sounds and colors still floating around him slowly dulled as the earth piled on top of him. Every breath he took brought more dirt into his mouth and throat. He took one shuddering breath after another, feeling the blood from his wounds soak into the ground around him. 

He couldn’t See anything anymore. His connection was cut off by more than the darkness around him. For the first time in years Jon was free of his shackles wrought on him by powers beyond his control, and what’s more, beyond his understanding. 

He took one free breath.

And Jonathan Sims dies alone, the Archive exhausted at last.

Exhausted, but free.

Martin Blackwood lands on his knees on the floor of what used to be the Magnus Institute. He gathers Jon into his arms, tears filling his eyes and falling, but never quite reaching the floor as they dissipate into the fog that has begun to gather around them.

When the survivors finally work up the courage to enter the Panopticon, the one part of the nightmarish world not to return in some form or another to its old state, they find only a pair of glasses surrounded by a pool of blood and upturned earth.

Georgie and Melanie keep them on a shelf in their flat. On the bad days Georgie will describe the glasses to Melanie as she holds them and they will share stories. 

It’s comforting to do something you know.

The world may forget Jonathan Sims, the Archive, or Martin Blackwood, but Georgie and Melanie refuse to. They will afford them that small kindness.

To be remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to go through the Entities in the order that Jon received his mark from them, but a couple meshed together (ie. The Dark, Buried, and Lonely at the end there). Thank you so much for making it this far. Feel free to chat to me on Tumblr @iwillsithereandtrytocontribute.


End file.
